Monday, October 18, 2010

Dead Stars: Barbara Billingsley

Barbara Billingsley died Saturday at the age of 94. If nothing else she set the standard for TV house wives in the 1950s and 1960s on the hit show Leave It To Beaver. High heels and pearls were the look all the time, very impressive for a stay at home mom who has degenerated since then.

RIP Barbara

Here's the deevolution of housewives for those of you who don't see it. If we start with Mrs. Cleaver out next step would be:

  Carrol Brady: She started off like Mrs. Cleaver but along with the rest of her family got a little groovy at the 1970s shook their peaceful Californian living. This house mother wore pants and did a lot less house work as she had her live in servant/carpet muncher Alice.

Next we took a weird lateral move in the 70s and 80s where the housewife was replaced with a servant lie Mrs. Garrett so her feelings and sexuality didn't need to be addressed unless we were faced with a very uncomfortable very special episode. There was no Mr. Garrett so we must assume she was either a widow or a liar. The possibility that Mr. Garret left her ass for a sexy french maid is also up for deabte.

Suddenly when things looked hopeless Claire Huxtable popped up! She was a Lawyer or a Doctor or something that netted a lot of money; she had a lot of children and seemed to take good care of that big house. I don't recall a servant ever getting shown out the back door.  Kudos to the 80s, right?



Wrong! We then got slapped with the reality of the typical housewife who was angry, bitter and not a very good housekeeper. In addition she couldn't even keep her ass thin for her man. The appearance of Rosanne caused men all over to balk at the prospect of getting hitched and having kids as this bite of reality was a bit too much.

Somehow our housewife suddenly took all the laziness and bitterness of Roseanne and decided she was a prostitute. Peg Bundy the horny, inappropriately dressed stay at home mom set the bar for the girls who teenagers when they first saw her and is many ways responsible for the rash of Real Housewives.

The Horror, the horror, the horror!

1 comment:

  1. i can never fit into the mold of just being a housewife. so, it's a good thing i'm an adult in this generation where i can be career-minded and career-driven. i don't know how current housewives do it. sit at home and clean the house when they have time. and, let the hubby bring home the money to feed the family. that just doesn't sound right to me.

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